Tech Hub Finland is a national collaboration platform with an international scope from the very beginning. Its goal is to accelerate the renewal of Finnish industry, strengthen competitiveness and support capable startups. The hub helps industrial companies find the right technologies and growth companies more quickly to support their research and development. For startups and growth companies, it offers a direct route to industrial customers, investors and international networks.
The initiative is backed by industrial companies Normet and Sandvik, Plug and Play, one of the world’s leading open innovation platforms, and the City of Tampere. New corporate partnerships are also welcome.
– Technological change, the green transition, and global competition are challenging companies to renew themselves at an unprecedented pace. Tech Hub Finland aims to replace siloed R&D practices with a proven international collaboration model that helps companies tap into the latest expertise, accelerate innovation, and drive international growth, says Irene Vekkeli, Director of Economic Development and Innovation at the City of Tampere.
– We have spent 20 years connecting startups with the corporations that can become their first customers. Tampere has the industrial companies, the universities, and the engineering talent. What we add is access to more than 100,000 startups and 550 corporate partners, so a manufacturer in Finland can find the right technology anywhere in the world and pilot it in months instead of years, says Saeed Amidi, Founder and CEO of Plug and Play.
Tech Hub Finland is creating a long-term innovation environment that enables Finnish industry to discover new partners, technologies, and business opportunities in Finland and across the world. Plug and Play has implemented similar initiatives around the world with more than 550 corporate partners, one strong example being Startup Autobahn in Stuttgart.
– With Tech Hub Finland, industrial companies gain access to a new, faster, and more ambitious way of innovating together with selected growth companies from around the world. As an alternative to individual, time-limited co-development projects, the initiative offers a long-term, systematic, and efficient model designed to reshape internal innovation practices and build sustainable competitiveness, says Kalle Sipilä, Senior Vice President, Equipment Business Line, Normet
– Success in global markets requires the ability to quickly identify, adopt and scale new solutions. We don’t need to develop everything ourselves – and we shouldn’t. Many new technologies and solutions emerge from startups. Tech Hub Finland connects the needs of industrial companies with startup expertise and international innovation networks. It gives us an opportunity to test new solutions in practice and bring proven innovations into our business faster, says Dr. Jani Vilenius, Director, Technology Development and Services & Tampere Site Manager, Sandvik Mining
The launch of Tech Hub Finland will be celebrated at an opening event in Tampere on 29 September 2026. The event will bring together representatives of companies, startups, investors, research organisations and the public sector to discuss the future of industry, new technologies and the opportunities offered by international collaboration. The launch event will also mark the official start of the hub’s activities.
